


In The Presence of Angels

by esama



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Do not repost, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2019-11-17 21:23:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18106742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: After his death Desmond returns to Monteriggioni.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by nimadge
> 
> This will be heavy on religious themes. I myself am agnostic and my experience with religion is mostly surface level. No disrespect or insult is intended, and helpful and well-meaning suggestions on how to better convey the religious themes are welcome.

Desmond is fairly sure this is a dream. Or… some kind of last moment flashback, your-life-flashing-before-your-eyes sort of deal. Granted, he didn't exactly spend _all_ of his life in Monteriggioni, just a tiny fraction of it, and most of that fraction he spent underground dreaming another man's memories, but… that's beside the point. This probably isn't reality, is what he's thinking.

Mainly because he can remember dying. His hand is _still_ burning from dying – or from the Eye, which he's pretty sure burned him to death. There was a lot of heat involved.

As deaths go – and he has experience with too many of them, really – this isn't that bad. It's weird, granted. Of all the places for his dying brain to conjure up, Monteriggioni makes sense, in a way – though they're not precisely _his_ memories, Monteriggioni was a place where… well, there's no other way to put it other than _his soul rested there,_  Ezio felt at peace there in a way Desmond doesn't think he's ever felt in life – or in Animus-induced dreams – so it makes sense for Monteriggioni to become a place where his dying mind might retreat to. A sort of wistful wish fulfilment daydream. Death dream. Whichever. _I wish I had a home like this_ type of dream.

Why Monteriggioni is on fire, though, he isn't so sure. Or maybe he is – he's on fire, Monteriggioni is on fire, and probably the Earth itself is on fire, somewhere. If the Eye didn't work, if the thing he was trying to do didn't work, if it all went to hell, well… there'd be a lot of fire, wouldn't there? And damn, it did feel like he was sort of taking on all the heat Sun could throw at the planet, in that moment, when his fingertips touched the pedestal, the Eye.

Shaking his burning hand with some hope of putting out the symbolic golden flames surrounding it, Desmond steps to the baluster at the edge of the platform where Auditore villa stands. Below him, the town of Monteriggioni is pretty much _destroyed_. Collapsedbuildings, burning buildings, buildings with holes in them, rooftops with whole chunks of them missing. It's not _that_ badly on fire anymore, now that he looks closely – most of the fires have run their course, leaving behind charred stone walls and piles of burned wood.

So, the place of peace his mind reached for was Monteriggioni… shortly after the Borgia attack. Lovely.

In life Desmond had only seen Monteriggioni during nighttime and always at secret, stealing glimpses at a place he knew only second hand. There'd always been a tinge of… sadness to it. Ezio's life was still playing out in his head, and just when Desmond got to know Monteriggioni in real life, Ezio _lost it_ in his memories. The bleeding effect followed Desmond all through the sewers and tunnels beneath the city, while in another time Ezio led his people away and hopefully to safety, and Desmond did… kind of the same and opposite.

Can you love a place that's not really your home? Loving a place as a concept is kind of weird to Desmond, when he's honest about it. Home towns, home cities, homes in general – they'd always been things other people had, which he just did not get. Monteriggioni… yeah, it's the closest he's gotten to one.

He kind of wishes he could've come to this place, even if it's the last dying gasp of his mind, when it was in a better shape. This is just kind of sad. All the buildings Ezio renovated, all the repairs – all the work and money he, and through him Desmond, put into this place… gone in an instant. Along with Ezio's uncle. God knows what happened to poor Mario's body.

Shaking his hand again and patting over it to try and put the ethereal flames out – with little success – Desmond sighs and pushes away from the baluster. Well, he thought this place up for some reason, after all. While he's still here, while he still has time, he might as well look around and see why.

* * *

 

Mercurio is a new recruit in the Papal armies – though to say that he was _recruited_ was maybe a little charitable to his recruiter. He was pressed into service on the count of his father's debts, his mother's bad reputation and the promise that he would earn money and fame enough to see his sister set up right in a proper marriage. As a son of a blacksmith whose shop and livelihood was confiscated by the church for _ill dealings_ … it is perhaps as good as he was ever going to get.

He's not much of a soldier yet, he knows this – his trainer would not shut up about it. He's too thin, he's too slow, he can't carry much, worthless slip of a youth, doesn't even know how to eat properly and put some meat on his bones. Would serve the church better stuck in a cell under some convent, copying transcripts. Too bookish by far.

Oh, if only – if only there was money in being a monk, Mercurio would have _loved_ a life of reading and writing and quiet prayer. Even with the dreaded rigors of a monastic life, it would have been preferable to… to all of this.

There are so many dead.

"Put your back into it, now, come on!" the sergeant shouts as Mercurio and the other enlisted soldiers put their shoulders to the cart, trying to push it over the rubble and down the street. The cart is loaded up with loose rock and wood that they are trying to clear off the streets enough that the fortress might be easily traversable once more.

The bodies have been cleared away now, mostly – the priest that travelled with the army is giving them all their last rites out in the camps, and Mercurio is glad to know their immortal souls would be forgiven for their trespasses and sins in life. A graveyard would be consecrated, and all the people of Monteriggioni would be buried, which, the Commander says is as good a fate as any of them could hope for.

 _"Thieves, whores, murderers to a man,"_ Cesare Borgia said, before the attack. _"Never has there been such a place of wickedness, and never again shall the wickedness spread from here. We will sanctify this ground in the name of the Lord, and purify it from the filth which sullies it…"_

Mercurio has quite forgotten the rest of the speech, though it was very rousing the moment it was delivered. It all sounded so grand then, so valorous.

But that was before the bodies, before the deaths. Mercurio had lost two friends – and killed seven people himself. The priest would absolve them of the sins of the deeds they had done in the name of the church, of the Pope and of God, but Mercurio isn't sure it's enough to clear his conscience. One of the people he killed was a woman – and the fact that she had a knife does not even signify now. In death, she'd been a pale and frail thing, and he knows the memory of her face would haunt him.

All of this would haunt him.

"There you go, lads, steady now! Push with your shoulders!"

They get the cart over the rubble, and it rolls almost to a wall before it rights itself. Mercurio takes a moment to breathe – half glad of the work and cursing it all the same. He is still so tired from the battle. This should be peasant's work, but there are none left here – all had fled in the face of the army. So now grunt work falls onto soldiers, still weary from the fight.

And yet it takes his mind off the blood, the fire, the horror. Of the fitful night of sleep that would not come, despite how weary he felt.

"Was this your first battle?" an older soldier with dented armour and the colour on his plume fading asks, sympathetic and understanding.

Mercurio must look how he feels then. "Yes," he says and wipes at his neck, where a bead of sweat tickles. "I will be over it in a moment."

"No. You will not," the older man says, claps his shoulder, and looks away. Mercurio is about to answer, when the other man's eyes widen in shock and then horror – and finally in awe. "Lord almighty," he breathes.

Mercurio turns, expecting to find a survivor horribly wounded or a soldier, carrying some riches. They are still bringing some out of the Villa above, after all – exquisite paintings, stolen, according to the Commander, and riches, collected illegally from honest folk. But no, it's neither a wounded person, nor a thing of wealth.

Instead what stands at the crossing of narrow streets, made narrower by collapsed buildings, defies sense. It's a man, or man- _shaped,_  figure dressed in white and blue, with golden flames clawing up its arm, and glow of heavenly light surrounding it at all sides.

On its back, there are wings. There is a _wealth_ of wings.

Mercurio falls to his knees, prayer on his lips before his mind even catches up to what his eyes are seeing – "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit," he breathes shakily – and he's not even the first one. The Sergeant has also fallen to one knee and is praying, "Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here –"

The figure, the _angel,_  doesn't even look their way. It – he – looks up at the rising column of fire and then steps away, across the street and behind a building corner and out of sight – the only mark of his passing a still lingering light that brushes on the buildings and their crumbling bricks and passes.

Mercurio gasps for a breath and prays, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end," he whispers. "Amen."

The prayers around him quiet down, men of arms making signs of crosses and murmuring prayers of mercy and protection until the silence and the distant sounds of work and buildings still collapsing. The last breath of _Amen_ leaves their group tense and watchful and then wary, Mercurio thinks of all of his sins, and the others share wide-eyed, fearful looks.

There is no denying that they all saw it.

"Quickly," the sergeant says, shaky. "Word to the Commander. And then we should…" he motions after the angel. "We should go after – after him. See what he – what we can…" he can't quite muster to continue.

No one moves.

Someone starts to pray again. "My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart…"

* * *

 

A light steps into a clearing and all activity there ceases – men stop in the task of clearing what used to be an apothecary, while other men, mostly finished storing away artworks from a burned art shop, freeze where they stand. Amidst the soldiers and the burned buildings, amidst the smoke and ash and dust and blood still staining the ground… there stands an angel.

For a moment, there is complete stillness, as the soldiers watch, as the angel looks around. Those who would later be able to put what they saw into words would say, _he looked sad, he looked infinitely grieved,_ for which they would be then silenced by wary eyed officers or priests or commanders, told to shut their mouths. But that is what they see now, they see a horror of Godly Might, and it looks upon them, sadly.

The men at the main street of Monteriggioni aren't the first to fall down on their knees in prayer and supplication, nor would they be the last – but the cacophony of prayer and cries and pleads for mercy is the loudest in Monteriggioni that day, as there is not a man there who can look at the angel, at what they themselves were doing, and think they were being blessed.

_Forgive us our trespasses, forgive us our sins, forgive us, forgive us._

The angel looks upon them, and passes them by.

It's Giotto, a miller's boy, who is the first to follow the angel. Not that anyone would contribute it to him, later – no one but those who saw. He is young, a boy of sixteen given rank for his height and physical strength more than his wits. Braver than he is intelligent and more eager than cautious, he makes the sign of the cross and whispers a prayer to Mary Mother of God and then he stumbles to his feet to follow the Angel through Monteriggioni.

Giotto is a simple boy, doesn't have his letters and barely any numbers – but he knows how to swing a sword and do as he's told, and though he's been to church aplenty and heard many a sermon, rarely in a language he could actually understand. The priest at the church closest to his childhood home always held his sermons in Latin, and Giotto was often more bored than fearful of the church or of God. But he knows that angel is a thing of some magnificence, something to be revered.

Something to tell to the girls at home, certainly. He can already imagine it, saying _I would have you know, I've met an angel, a real angel of the Lord, yes I did, and spoke to it too,_ which Giotto thinks might make a better, grander story than anyone else could tell, why, even the Father at the church would have to listen to him in awe for once!

The Commander promised them glory and fame and fortune, and so far all Giotto has seen is burned paintings and bodies, neither which looked like glory to him. This angel – and all the stories about him Giotto might later tell – seems more like it. All white and glowing and winged and on fire as he is. Surely, this is _glory._

Only, Giotto thinks even as other men move to follow him, all praying and whispering and looking awed… well, the angel doesn't do much, now does he? He walks around the narrow streets of Monteriggioni, over the rubble and under half-broken arches, and he doesn't do or say anything, not even as the congregation grows and more and more men move to follow.

Behind Giotto, men whisper, "We should – we should ask him what he wants. What we can do for him," and "We should offer our services," and "Are we blessed, are our actions blessed here?"

But no one dares to talk to the angel, so Giotto decides, he would be the very first. He would step forward and he would be known as the Man who Spoke to Angels, and he would have Glory of God and –

Then, from the other side of the street, a group of men comes running – at the head of them the Commander and the priest, Father Lino, who gasps for a breath and then goes to both knees, clutching at his cross and at his bible, breathing out, " _Gloria Patri, et Filio, Et Spiritui Sancto_ –" which Giotto knows because that is what priests _always_ say at sermons.

The Commander looks at the angel, his eyes wide and his face pale, and Giotto knows his moment is gone – he will not have the glory. The Commander will claim it instead, as he steps forward to speak to the angel.

"My Lord," Cesare Borgia says and falls also to his knees, his hands spread out as if to embrace the angel, or to display himself. "We are blessed – our crusade here, blessed! God himself has seen our actions and judged them good! Please, tell us His Will –" and then he too breaks into speaking Latin, which Giotto cannot understand.

The angel stands there, flames flickering over the right side of his body, over a bare arm that sits at the heart of the flames. It makes it hard to see his face – there is more fire now, it burns brighter – but Giotto thinks the angel looks at the Commander.

He does not think the angel approves of the Commander.

"Tell us," Cesare Borgia breathes, half awed and half wary, still on his knees, arms still spread, "Tell us your message, tell us the Will of God. What does he want of _me?_  Tell me my Destiny!"

The angel blinks and looks around, as if lost in thought. Then he looks down at the Commander again and says, "Leave."

"My Lord?" the Commander asks.

"Leave," the angel says calmly. "You don't belong here. I don't want you here. Go away."

For a moment there is silence. The commander stands, slow, first getting one foot under him and then the other. "My lord," he says, uncertain. "We claimed this fortress in the righteous battle – "

"Go away," the angel says again, almost kindly.

The commander doesn't seem to understand. "But –"

The angel lifts his hand, the one that is surrounded by the Fire of Heaven. The Commander doesn't hesitate – he stumbles back and then he runs, and he is not the only one. The moment the Commander runs, so do his men – fleeing in terror at the sight of the angel's flaming hand, and the promise of doom it holds within its grip. The angel looks at them and they run faster, stumbling over each other as they flee from the angel's implied wrath.

Giotto lingers long enough to see the priest, tugging the hems of his robes up as he runs – and the angel, looking after them with something like wry amusement on his face.

Later, word travels through the army as every man in Monteriggioni flees the town – the commander had pissed his hose while running.

* * *

 

Monteriggioni empties around Desmond as he tells every man he comes across to just, " _Go away._ " It's kind of amusing, how fast everyone runs – at first, anyway. The prayers and signs of the crosses and all that are a little less amusing. And then… then he comes across the first body in the ruins of the town.

Sending grown men running at his word is kind of hilarious, but a dead body, that's… that's different. That doesn't belong in this weird… whatever this is. Power fantasy? It would make sense, for a last moment delusion. He'd definitely dreamed of somehow being able to take Monteriggioni _back,_  somehow, regardless of all the years in between, so… getting back at Cesare Borgia, it makes sense.

The body of the woman, half buried in the rubble with only one pale hand sticking out, that doesn't fit.

It's cold when he touches it, the fingers stiff and still and lifeless.

Desmond strokes the hand gently, wondering who it is. A courtesan, or just a woman who lived here? Her hand is clean and slender. She must've been young.

This isn't funny.

Monteriggioni's destruction is too… explicit. He'd thought for a moment it might be like picking at a scab, his own mind turning the horror worse to somehow put Monteriggioni to rest properly  – like making a wound hurt more, so that it would feel like it's actually healing, or something like that. Spiritual placebo effect, or something. But the smell of the smoke and the filth, the precise texture of the collapsed buildings, the burned paintings, all of it – it's too… detailed, too clear. He couldn't have imagined those paintings, the designs carved into the walls, the exact pattern of destruction across the streets.

Even the Animus didn't have detail like this. He can feel the fine hairs on the back of the woman's wrist, how dry her cuticles are, the broken nail on her forefinger. There's a cut on her inner arm, it never bled, she must've gotten it after death. It's too much.

There's a sound of someone stepping behind him and Desmond says, _"Go away_ ," while holding the dead woman's hand and trying to make sense of it.

"But – I –"

Desmond turns to look over his shoulder, and behind him the child – maybe thirteen, fourteen years old and covered in soot – takes a frightful step back. As he stands, the boy falls to his knees in fear or worship, whichever it is, it feels all the same – the kid actually throws his arms down and presses his forehead to the dirty cobblestones.

"Please, my lord angel, have mercy," the boy says, sobbing. "Have mercy, have mercy. I have no place to go, this is my home – have mercy, I have nothing left –"

There's a mark on the boy's neck, which has bled a lot – a sword wound, shallow, but deep enough to look mortal. Desmond can almost imagine how he got it and how he might have lost consciousness – or faked it – and how he had used it to fake his death and then hide. A child of Monteriggioni – Desmond didn't know Monteriggioni had children.

"Have mercy, Lord, have mercy," the boy begs, and Desmond is _confused._

What kind of dream is this? What _is_ this?

And did the kid just call him an angel?

Desmond looks at his hand – still burning, doesn't show any signs of stopping, really. Then he looks down at himself. Hoodie, jeans, sneakers. It doesn't look particularly… divine or anything. Probably a bit weird to a kid from the Renaissance, but… that would imply that the kid is real and can actually perceive things enough to find them weird.

Desmond lowers his hand and then looks around. Around them, Monteriggioni is still in ruins, still partially burning, and it looks horrific. Even sending Cesare Borgia running didn't make it any less so. It's still _destroyed,_ and Desmond is _still there_ and has been for a good while now.

"The hell is this?" he murmurs, and on the ground, the kid sobs and begins to pray.


	2. Chapter 2

Desmond isn't… entirely sure what to do.

Monteriggioni seems to be real – which also makes its destruction real. The death, the fires, the smoke, the ruin – if it's not just his mind conjuring a fantasy for his to find closure in, then it's… all really happening. All the fires and the bodies. All of it is real.

And so is the army at Monteriggioni's doorsteps. Desmond's words have sent the Papal Armies running from the town, but not from the countryside – the town is now besieged by tents and people, praying. He can see them as he walks on the walls. They've erected crosses, there's a priest holding a sermon at the crossing of roads in front of Monteriggioni, and a little further back, there are tents surrounded by lines of barely covered corpses. The dead of Monteriggioni, awaiting burial.

All of it is real and yet _none of it matters,_ because there's a body, hung up right at Monteriggioni's gates, just short of having been _crucified._

Cesare Borgia had gone out of his way to make an example out of the town, showing Borgia's might and strength over the Assassins in any way he could. He destroyed the town, stole all the wealth – left Monteriggioni abandoned for about ten years, from what Desmond can remember, the Papal Armies had kept people from resettling until the town wore down under time and weather and never fully recovered. The ruin and neglect had ran its course for five centuries until the time Desmond saw the place in real life and… it had barely changed. People had repaired the buildings. That was about it.

That doesn't matter either – because Cesare Borgia had hung Mario Auditore's body at Monteriggioni's gates and it's _still there_ , hanging over the priest holding a sermon. Even now, even with whatever is going on, Cesare had not allowed it to be taken down.

"My lord," the boy who has now been stumbling after Desmond on the top of the walls, his head bowed and his knees probably bruised from all the kneeling he's been doing, says warily. "That is the – the condottiero of Monteriggioni – Ser Mario –"

"I know who he is," Desmond says, and before the boy can say anything more, he drops down from the wall and to stand under the gates, still within the town borders. Beyond the gate, the congregation of praying soldiers stops and some come to their feet to run or back away, others take up arms, most bow their heads, holding their breaths.

The priest, a pale old man with a bald head and shaven face, runs forward and prays harder, louder, "And may the word of my lord the king secure my inheritance, for my lord is the king is like an angel of God," the man shouts his way, "in discerning good and evil. May the Lord your God be with you!"

Desmond ignores the man and cuts Mario down – that ends the sermon there and then, the soldiers and a priest gasping and backing away in horror. Somewhere to the left of Desmond, the terrified Monteriggioni boy looks for a way down the side of the broken wall, while Desmond catches the falling body before it can hit the ground, taking Mario's weight onto his shoulder. The guy is lighter than he looks.

Death makes everyone seem so frail, doesn't it, no matter how strong they were in life. They're all pretty much the same, once they're dead.

"Boy," Desmond says as the boy from Monteriggioni clambers down to the street to join him. "Can you close the damn gates?"

"Yes, my lord," the boy breathes and goes to struggle with the gate's closing mechanisms while Desmond turns to carry Mario back to the Villa, back home.

* * *

 

Though he'd prayed for a glimpse of anyone he might know, anyone that might turn up alive… Ardito is starting to fear he might be the only survivor left in Monteriggioni. Everyone else is gone, there are only bodies now and only a few of those – and he dares not to look if he knows them. He knows his mother is gone – he saw her fall, saw her die.

He's still swallowing the rage and fear and grief of it, the look in her eyes still in his mind's eye – he can still see how her face went slack as the stone fell on her, as light in her eyes was extinguished, as her last breath escaped her and he knew, he knew, oh he _knew_ she would never sing to him again and –

He must close the gate now. The angel ordered, and what can Ardito do but obey.

"Boy, stop," someone shouts outside, but Ardito doesn't listen – and though the enemies outside the gate make moves to get back in, none of them dare to cross that threshold, from the open space to the town claimed by the angel – none of them dare to risk it.

Ardito closes the gates. He didn't even know how, before, but the mechanism of the gate feels as familiar as his carving knife, the handle fitting his hand as if he'd always been working at it, and the mechanism triggers, rattles, and then the chain runs up. With a resounding thrum of metal hitting the earth, the heavy metal grate comes down and the town is sealed once more.

"What has he told you, boy?" a man outside says – the one in impressive amour and with a blood red cape, Ardito thinks he'd seen the man leading the attack. "What has the angel said to you, what does he want? Tell me!"

Ardito doesn't tell – he turns tail and runs, wiping at his mouth, his eyes, shaking all the way to the core. The angel has left a glowing trail on the ground, it's not hard to follow – down the main street, past the ransacked shops and buildings, to the stairs, to the Villa.

The angel is just at the top, when Ardito reaches the stairs – he stands still on the tiled yard of the Auditore Villa with Ser Mario's body in his hands, eyeing the villa.

Ardito falls to his knees, as he's done every time when the angel stops moving, and waits to see what will happen – knowing only that he will serve. The angel chased away the attackers and took Monteriggioni back with his word alone – so Ardito will serve. For as long as there is Monteriggioni left, Ardito will stay and _he will serve._

"The sanctuary," the angel decides. "Yeah."

Ardito rises quickly to his feet and follows – the angel steps inside, heedless of the fact that parts of Auditore Villa are still on fire – walking through the Villa's great halls and fine rooms as if he knows them. Maybe he does. Maybe he was the guardian angel of the Auditore, and now he is here to lay them to rest and take vengeance for their demise.

Lord, let it be just that.

Whether the angel even knows he's there, Ardito doesn't know, the angel says nothing to him. Together they pass through a sealed door and then through a hidden entrance, into some secret dwelling of the Auditore, far below the villa. The catacombs are grand and cold, Ardito finds – there is a great oval chamber there, with many impressive statues, watching them. The angel stands before them, looking at the centre-most one and then crouching down. He lays Ser Mario there, at the centre of the oval room, brushing his fingers over the bruises left behind by the noose.

Then, for a long time, the angel says and does nothing, just crouching there, silent, his wings taking a considerable amount of space despite how large the secret chamber is. Ardito grows uneasy and nervous – maybe the angel will stay there always, not eating, sleeping, _blinking,_  while Ardito grew hungrier and thirstier and tired… until time passed, he died, and the angel would keep on watching.

Ardito regrets not going to the church more, now. He did, occasionally, but the church was small and always full, and son of a whore like him rarely found a place to sit. He preferred to listen to his mother's tales of God and church, as she'd learned them from Sister Theodora, an Assassin herself. She made it all so exciting and lovely, and her singing was much more interesting than hymns.

But Ardito doesn't remember much – he doesn't know how people are supposed to address angels.

"My lord," he says again, at a loss as to what else to say, hoping for… something. For the angel to do something. To show him the way.

The angel draws what Ardito thinks is the first breath he's heard the creature draw, and then the angel stands, feathers rustling. Ardito has seen a picture of an angel once, a painting in the art shop – that angel was a woman, with long golden hair and a lovely face. This one is a man with scarcely any hair at all, and he looks only terse and wary and unhappy.

The angel turns his eyes to Ardito, who quickly bows his head to avoid meeting his eyes, regretting his thoughts, fearing the angel heard them.

"What's your name?" the angel asks.

"A-Ardito. Ardito da Monteriggioni, son of Aurelia," the boy gasps and bows his head lower, nervous but fearing where lying might get him more. "M-my mother was a whore."

"You were born in Monteriggioni," the angel says quietly.

"Yes, my lord. In the backroom of the brothel, fourteen years hence."

The angel looks away, and his face, Ardito finds as he steals a glance up, twists. Is it disgust? No, it's sadness, regret.

"There were kids here," the angel says, even quieter. "Children. I never saw them."

"I – yes, my lord. Many," Ardito says and bows his head. "I do not know what happened to others, but – there were others." Many in the brothel, where they enjoyed easy life thanks to the fact that Ser Ezio himself kept the whores of Monteriggioni in comfort. Sons and daughters of mercenaries too, many of them – Camilla, whose father had only recently joined the forces of Monteriggioni, said that it was the nicest place she'd ever lived in, and she'd lived in many places.

Ardito's breath quivers as he realises suddenly that Camilla might be dead. Her father would be, certainly – and Carlo was a good man, he gave Ardito and some of the other boys lessons in swordplay, he always had time and encouragement to give, and now he might be, he probably was… gone…

The angel looks at him, and Ardito struggles to get his breath in order and swallow the pain in his throat. He cannot cry, he will not cry. Not in front of an angel of the Lord.

The angel's expression changes – from sad to determined. Then he lifts his hand.

Ardito flinches back, unable to help himself, as the golden flames on the angel's side, surrounding his whole right arm, reach for him. Realising what he'd done, Ardito bites his tongue and steps back forward, saying, "Sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to flinch, my lord, I am sorry –"

But the angel is already pulling his hand back, looking at it, at the flames surrounding it. He squeezes his long fingers into a fist and the flames flare up – but this time Ardito holds his ground, bites back the fear, and waits.

The angel doesn't touch him – he turns away instead, back to the stairs. "Let's see what we can save," he says.

Biting back tears of frustrated fear and hope, Ardito gets up and follows.

* * *

 

Filippo had never believed in God, in saints – or in angels. What he _does_ believe is that humans are monsters onto themselves and onto each other, and if there's heaven or hell to be found, they'll both be of man's own making. And both can probably be found in Rome.

Not that anyone questions a spy on the matters of humanist or theist philosophy. Cesare Borgia doesn't either – nor does he seem all that concerned for Filippo's safety, or the sanctity of his immortal soul, when he says, "Find a way into that fortress and find out what the seraph is doing and what he wants."

It isn't the first time Filippo endangers himself for his commander's behalf. He'd been the first at Monteriggioni, getting the lay of the land and mapping out the roads for the assault – knowing that the fortress was full of Assassins who were likely better spies than he'd ever be. That was simply the nature of his job – every night he might walk to his doom, and he did it anyway, because that was what he was paid for.

Tonight would be no different, because Filippo did not believe in angels. He's seen would be saints, seers, fortune tellers, even one lunatic who claimed he'd been struck by stigmata and now had the lord's gift of turning water into wine – he didn't. All were fake, charlatans and conmen to the last. This angel would no doubt be no different.

Filippo takes the wall of Monteriggioni at night, climbing up the broken outside of it with ease – the cannons had done a number there and had left him plenty of handholds in the broken exterior. Once on top, he wastes no time in slipping over and into the town.

Monteriggioni still stinks of smoke and misery – there are still some fires going around the town. Filippo had seen the town before the attack, had even visited the whorehouse – it has been reduced to mostly rubble now.

The Commander was very thorough in his destruction – obviously it was his intention that no one would ever again live in Monteriggioni. The Assassins were meant to die here, and their way of life with them – and what remained of their fortress would stand as a broken, burned warning for any who would dare to try and follow in their footsteps.

Cesare was too hasty, though. Not only were most of the known Assassins not even in Monteriggioni at the time of the attack, but Ezio Auditore had escaped – now with a personal grudge against Cesare himself. Because Cesare had gone out his way to kill Mario Auditore – and make the Assassino _watch._

That, Filippo thinks, is how humans make hell, by stupid decisions that make other men want to kill them. Not that it's any of his business. He's but an old spy, not a wise hallowed leader like Cesare Borgia. 

Now, the supposed angel.

The light leads Filippo right to him – like a hundred torches lit, the central street of Monteriggioni is bathed in light. There, carts lay abandoned and rubble covers the street – there, buildings still smoke, their doors hacked open for pillaging. There, the angel stands considering a former blacksmith shop, while at his feet a scrawny, dirty boy eats bits of burned bread and weeps.

Filippo tries to understand – he looks at the wings and tries to see how they could be made. He had seen fake wings in theatre plays and during carnivals, goose and swan feathers glued to wooden frames, heavy and obviously manmade. These – he cannot see how they could be.

He can see through them – and yet they are there, burning with what he can only think of as _ethereal flame_ , golden and brilliant, but somehow not hot. The boy on the ground basks in the light and casts a flickering shadow – whenever the angle moves even a little, the shadow too moves.

How could you make such a thing happen – fire inside a structure of veils? And the angel's right arm too is on golden fire, the flames rising above his shoulder.

Even at the distance, Filippo can feel – something. Looking at the man he can feel it stirring inside him, emotion unlike any he's even felt. Like the joy of being drunk, like the feeling of smoking opium, like waking from a nightmare, there's – something he cannot name, a breathless feeling, as euphoric as it's terrible.

Seraph – the Burning One. Back at the camp the priest was going mad, ripping through his Bible for answers. Was the angel a messenger of God or His fist, sent down to punish them… or something else entirely? A fallen angel that had fallen upon Monteriggioni for its horrors and sins?

Filippo watches, thinking none of these things as his thoughts churn in the void, as the angel considers the storefront with its burned sign and bloodstained counter. For a long time the angel does nothing, just looks.

Then, as the boy makes a hesitant move to follow, the angel moves to make his way inside the store. "You don't have to get up," the angel says. "Eat. This won't take long."

What he does inside the store, Filippo can't see. Light shines through the open front and out of the broken doorway, moving as the angel moves. Filippo is thinking of finding another vantage point, when the angel comes out again, now carrying with him something in his flame-covered hand.

An axe.

"My lord?" the boy on the ground asks feebly, looking at the axe.

The angel looks down and hefts the axe, as if testing its weight. It seems to glow too, in his hand.

"I don't –" the angel says and then lowers it. "It's what you need, when there's a fire. You need an axe."

The boy doesn't look like he knows what to make of that, and neither does Filippo.

"Come on," the angel says, shaking his head, as the axe gleams and changes in his hand. "Let's go put these fires out."

Filippo's blood courses loudly in his ears as the angel and his servant walk past him, not seeing him among the rubble. It's a while before he dares to follow, while something inside him tells him not to.

He doesn't believe in God or in saints. He didn't believe in angels.

He doesn't know what this is, though.

The angel leaves behind golden, glowing footprints.

With his heart in his throat and his stomach feeling as though it's full of cold, hard spirits, Filippo follows in shadows and questions his beliefs more than he ever has before.

* * *

There'd been a regular at the bar Desmond had once worked at, four lifetimes ago. An old, retired fireman, who liked to see his drinks set on fire and had a sort of air of manic depression about him.

He'd told Desmond about one case, when there's been a fire, and because of mishaps of scheduling, he'd been called in off duty and the rest of the guys had already headed out on the big truck – he'd followed them in his civilian car in full gear, and then ended up beating the truck to the place, because while they got stuck in traffic, he didn't. He was the first there – and they knew there were people inside the building, but he had no tools, no hose, nothing, not even a fire extinguisher. All he had was an axe.

It was all he needed to save the people inside.

Desmond isn't a firefighter, but he does feel a little more comfortable with an axe in his hand. Leftovers from Connor maybe, even if it isn't a tomahawk, it's better than nothing.

"Ardito," Desmond says and the boy almost jumps out of his skin. "Can you go find water? We're going to need it."

"Yes, my lord, right away," the boy says, sounding almost eager, and hurries of – leaving Desmond with his spy. Desmond considers the man and then ignores him, turning his attention elsewhere.

Now that he's looking for them, he can feel people in the ruins – unconscious, trapped, dying, dead. There aren't many of them, but there are some, and even one is one too many.

Still not sure what is going on or what he's going to do, Desmond concentrates onto what he can do. So, with an axe in hand, he sets out to set the people of Monteriggioni free, one way or the other.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considerations of prostitution, potential sexual abuse and sin

Desmond feels as though his ears are ringing. They aren't, he can hear just fine, but it still feels like it – like he's in the aftermath of an explosion and his senses are all askew and he's seeing in tunnel vision. Everything feels just sort of… _off_.

It's been like that the whole time, he thinks, but he's only noticing it now, as he hefts the axe and hacks his way through the fire and into the heart of the barracks, where the mercenaries of Monteriggioni stayed. The building, like most other buildings in the town, has almost collapsed, but there's a cellar, he knows it, it's where they kept all the beer – it's where the women and children hid when the bombardment begun. It's where they still are. Not all of them are alive anymore. The rest...

There is still fire around him, smouldering woodwork and fire scorched brickwork – the roof has collapsed in, there's still fire blazing away. It's noisy, but now that Desmond is right in the middle of it, he hears it like through a tunnel – like it's a distant thing, too distant to actually hurt him. And maybe it is, too, he's already on fire himself, and the flames around him don't really seem to make that much difference to him.

They make a difference to other people. That's why Ardito is waiting outside. The spy, on the other hand, had taken to the roof. Both are out of harm's way.

Desmond draws the axe back and then swings, splitting apart a wall in his way. The halls of the barracks aren't small, and yet they feel weirdly narrow and crowded, like he can't quite fit inside. Maybe it's the smoke, cinders and embers. Everything feels too big and too small at the same time, and as he ducks his head to get through the gap he's made in the wall, it's like something brushes against the walls, and it's almost like he gets stuck on something – on _nothing_.

He pulls himself through as wood splinters behind him and around him and the whole building shudders. Desmond doesn't pay it any attention, though – there's the trapdoor, and all the collapsed bits of wood, holding it shut, trapping the people below inside.

Turning the axe in his hand, now as big as a spade, Desmond levers it under the collapsed beams and boards and then knocks them aside and out of his way. Pulling the trapdoor open after isn't even an issue, and as smoke billows out from beneath, Desmond lets the trapdoor fall to the floor before crouching down. Around him, the fire is crackling again.

"Come on," he says to the people below and holds a hand down and into the smoke, which is lit in golden hue around him. "I'm here to rescue you."

There's a moment of hesitation and then a sound of scrabbling against stone before a shaking little hand reaches for his, dirty nails scraping against his fingers, not quite far enough to hold. "Please," a girl's voice calls as she tries to get a hold. "Please, please, please – help!"

Desmond moves to reach further down, while another figure below, a larger one, adult, moves forward and picks the child from the floor, to hold her up.

The first one up is a little girl, maybe six years old, who coughs and clings to Desmond's hand for dear life as he lifts her up and onto the floor beside the trap door. She sputters at the sight of him and then hiccups and keeps on coughing. Desmond makes sure she's not about to fall back in and then reaches down again.

The second one up is a dirty woman with sweaty, soot-stained face and burned hair, whose eyes widen as Desmond hauls her up by both arms. She falls to her knees beside the little girl and, terrified, pulls the girl to her side. Desmond glances at her, deems she's safe enough, and then looks down.

There's a third one there, but – they're not reaching up.

"Her ankle," the woman whispers, her voice hoarse as the little girl continues to cough and stare, her eyes wide and pale on her otherwise dirty face. "She can't stand."

Desmond nods and then drops into the wine cellar – breaking the floorboards on his way down and making the woman and the girl cry out in shock. Desmond ignores them – there's the last survivor, on the floor. She's a younger woman, maybe eighteen, and it looks like she was trying to crawl her way to the trap door – she's barely dressed and her foot is bloody and poorly bandaged.

She stares at him for a long, breathless moment, and then, shakily, say, "Mercy, please, mercy on my soul – help me –"

Desmond kneels, checks her ankle, and then says awkwardly, "You'll be alright," because he doesn't know what else to say, really. "I'm not here to hurt you."

There are others in the basement, but none that still breathe – smoke inhalation had gotten to one, the other had had a heart failure and the third was wounded and bled out while the bombardment was still going. Nothing Desmond can do for them now, so he gathers the shaking, mostly naked woman into his arms, and stands up with her.

There's a ladder, but he can't climb it with both hands holding her – so he doesn't bother.

Above, the older woman is praying, the little girl in her lap, both of them flinching as he joins them with one powerful jump. The woman in Desmond's arms is shaking and murmuring weakly, "I am wretched, I am poor, I've lived a life in sin, but I hurt none, I bore no ill will, I did no harm, I only loved, please, I only _loved_ –" into his neck with a sort of breathless despair that makes him sad and sorry for her.

"Shh, it's alright, you'll be alright," he says, reaches for the axe and then looks at the woman and the girl on the floor. "It's not safe here. Come on – let's go."

Mired in their fear and hope and confusion, he leads them through the fire, and to safety.

* * *

 

Lisabetta shakes like a leaf as the angel sets her down, terrible anxiousness coursing through her like a glass of wine too strong for a woman her size. She's barely dressed, only in her underthings, her body filthy and bare and the cooler night air stings almost worse than the fire had. She must have burn marks too, she'd have scars. She must look _terrible_.

Why that is what she concentrates on after all this time, all the time waiting, trapped, expecting the worst, she doesn't know. But that's what she thinks – how horrible she must look, filthy and wounded and miserable. Of all the things and all the horrors, somehow that's what steals her breath.

She can only gasp weakly as the angel's burning hands touch her knees, whimpering as he touches her foot. She's alive, Lisabetta knows that much, she's going to live, but it's so confusing, and her throat hurts and her eyes are bleary and stinging and she can barely see past the horrible, heavenly light and the man haloed in it – she can't breathe – she can't think – she can't _breathe_ –!

"Breathe," the angel commands and Lisabetta draws a deep, shuddering breath.

She'd been with Agnolo when the attack begun, they'd had fun, it was a _good_ night. He'd just been paid, and he was in good spirits – and Lisabetta honestly _liked_ him, he was kind and made her and the other girls laugh, and being with him never hurt, it was never uncomfortable. He was no ser Ezio, but he was as good a man as you could find in Monteriggioni, a decent man. She'd been with him when the first cannonballs had hit.

According to Marsilia, he is dead now – she'd seen him on the walls, she'd seen him fall. The battle was a losing one from the start. They never had a chance. The town had been evacuated, ser Ezio had bought them time – but Lisabetta hadn't known. She'd hid, first under the bed, then in the cellar. She wasn't the only one. By the time they heard of the evacuation, it was too late.

She'd been so terrified, certain they'd all be killed, or worse, that the attackers would find them and do terrible things to them. It happens, she'd heard, it always happens when enemy takes a city or a town or even a village. The men are killed and the women… worse than.

The wait for it was still almost worse – by the time they thought to attempt an escape instead of dying of thirst, they were trapped and the trapdoor refused to burdge. Then all they could do was wait – wait for the smoke to kill them, or the enemy to find them.

She'd thought she'd rather kill herself than be caught by the Papal Armies – she'd tried to gather her will to do it, when they'd heard the movement from above and little Gilia got up so hopefully, so sure they'd be saved – Lisabetta had seen the look in Marsilia's eye, had seen the knife in her hand… But neither of them had the will to do it.

And now – now she doesn't know what to think. Her mind is a whirl of fear and hope and confusion, and it refuses to settle – she's not sure if she's really out of the basement at all, this is all so impossible, so fantastical – maybe she is dying instead, maybe the smoke has gotten to her, because surely, _surely_ …

Surely that cannot be an angel, in front of her.

Lisabetta thinks of Agnolo's kisses on her chest and how she liked it and thinks _she's sinful_. She's a whore. She'd heard it so often, she knows what she is. She'd rarely felt shame for it, but she knew. She is not a Good Woman, not like Marsilia, and any moment now it will bleed out like black oil and strain the angel's hands on her foot.

She thinks, _I'm alive, I'm alive, thank God, I'm alive._

She thinks, _everyone must be dead. The girls from the brothel, the men I've lain with, they must all be dead – but_ I'm _alive._

And she wonders, _why_. Why her, of all the people she'd seen and heard killed, why her.

The angel still kneels in front of her, Lisabetta's foot in his warm hands, and the flames lick at the bandage Marsilia had made of the hems of her dress. The wings – they are like clouds rising behind a mountain, so white, so brilliant, bathed in the sun's rays even in the darkness of the night. He's handsome, and his hands are gentle.

Lisabetta is crying. She doesn't even know why, but she can't stop – she sobs like a lost child, wretched and helpless.

Marsilia is staring at her as she holds little Gilia close. There's someone else there – a boy? – but Lisabetta can't recognize his face, she can only barely even see it. It is all _so much._ She can't stand it.

Her foot doesn't even hurt anymore, and still she cannot stop crying – only half aware of her own voice, choking, "Glory to God, to the saints, to all His Angels, forgive me, thank you, forgive me, thank you, _thank you_..."

* * *

 

Marsilia has lived all her life in Monteriggioni, and she has seen some strange things in town.

She'd seen it fall to ruin over many years, and then she'd seen it revitalised when ser Ezio took over the finance and began putting money into the town. She'd been there when barracks had been fixed, the brothel had been built and the bank opened, and she'd been watching from the distance as their new, brilliant benefactor kept court with thieves, murderers and whores.

She'd thought then, there is no stranger, greater man than Ezio Auditore, the Lord of the wicked with his court of sinners. She'd never quite understood why, then, he also rebuilt the church. Why, when his town is full of excommunicants and criminals – ser Ezio himself the first and worst among them, the Assassin, excommunicated by the Pope, the Holy Father himself. After all that, is there room there for God?

Of course _she_ visited the church, and of course she saw many others do the same. But it wasn't the same, was it, when a thief and a murderer – or worse, a whore – goes to the church. It is not like _they_ are really God-fearing, are they. They can't be, she always thought, because they break covenant all the time. They kill and they covet and they lust – there isn't a courtesan in Monteriggioni that has not lain with a married man! Or worse, a _woman_! Surely it makes a mockery of the church – building the church at all is a mockery onto itself!

Marsilia hadn't understood, and by the saints, she hadn't _approved,_ but she's a God-fearing woman, and humble, and never said a word. Whatever glimpse of _goodness_ that shone upon Monteriggioni was surely only a good thing. Perhaps, before they all lost their souls to the devil – if they hadn't already – the wretched sinners would repent.

Not that she'd ever said any of these things aloud. She's not an idiot. But she thought them – she thought them often, and now her mind is a cavern of empty echoes, her own thoughts bouncing around in a vast nothingness. All the things she'd thought and believed, the _truths_ she'd harboured. They natter on in her ear, like mockingbirds, all in her own voice.

 _Can't let Gilia play with her, her mother is a whore, they're both going to Hell. Oh, I hope that bitch doesn't try to talk to me again, I don't want Gilia to hear about her profanities. I cannot believe the Father allows all this disrespect and irreverence. At least_ we _aren't like them – at least_ we _are good, humble people. At least we respect God._

She'd been so sure of her goodness. So proud of raising Gilia to the word of God, not to the blasphemy of the Assassins and all those who followed them. They might live in Monteriggioni, but they weren't like _those people_.

Now there's an angel on his knees in front of a weeping Monteriggioni whore, and Marsilia doesn't know what to think at all.

"You'll be alright," the angel says, patting Lisabetta's foot. "Ardino, did you get the water?"

"Yes!" the boy – Marsilia doesn’t know him, but judging by his clothes he's another whore-son, Monteriggioni is full of them –

Marsilia's mind is struck thoughtless, again – less by the vision of the angel accepting a bucket of water from the boy, and more by the vileness of her own thought. The boy has water – they are all dying of thirst, and the boy has water, and her first thought is to insult his birth? Why?

Lord, why do her thoughts all seem so ugly, all of a sudden?

"Here," the angel says, offering water with a ladle to Lisabetta, who's still drawing hitching, sobbing breaths as she drinks. "Here," the angel says, and turns to Marsilia and Gilia, and Marsilia thinks – _she knows…_

She falls to her knees, and Gilia slips from her arms, to accept the water eagerly. The angel lets her drink, looking at her with a sad expression, and turns to Marsilia.

He can see her thoughts, her ugly beliefs – she can feel him, he is looking right at the core of her, all of her petty jealousies, how she looked upon the pretty courtesans of Monteriggioni and _hated them_ and feared them. He can see her grief and anger, her husband and the _whore_ he ran off with, only she wasn't even a prostitute, she was a singer, beautiful, young, slim – and Marsilia hated her, hated them, all the pretty women who catch the eyes of men, she hates them all –

The angel holds the water out to her, and Marsilia thinks her head will burst, with all the ugliness that seems to rise to the surface, like scum on the pond's surface, all of it is so vile, and it all comes from inside her, and she never saw how utterly repulsive it all was.

"Here," the angel says, and feeling as though her skin would burn, Marsilia shuffles closer, bows her head and drinks from the ladle in his hands, where the wood burns with golden, heavenly light.

"It's alright," the angel says, quiet. "You're going to be alright."

Marsilia drinks and in her mind she prays, _strike the wickedness from my heart, for it is a bitter and spiteful beast I cannot control – strike it down, and free me from envy._

The angel looks down at her and when Marsilia lifts her head, she thinks – nothing.

"There you are," the angel says and turns to put the ladle away, back into the bucket. Gilia is there, beside him, looking up at his wings with wonder, and it is like Marsilia is seeing her for the first time – and oh, Gilia's breathing sounds better, but the poor lamb is so dirty and pale and tired, Marsilia needs to find a blanket for her…

Gilia reaches up and for the angel's wings, her eyes shining, and she's bathed in his halo as she takes a splinter of wood from the feathers. The angel stops, drawing a sharp breath, Marsilia's breath catches – oh, the sweet innocence of youth, what had she done?! Touching an angel of the Lord like that, good heavens, had she not taught her respect, had she not –

But the angel only glances back at Gilia, looking more confused than anything. Then, uneasy, he draws away.

The wings rustle like a thousand leaves in the wind, as he stands – there are still splinters among them, but the angel doesn't seem to mind, or notice.

"Look after each other," he says, blinking, and in his hand is again the golden axe, its blade wide and gleaming with inner light as he turns away. "I'm going to release the others."

Wood cracks in the barracks, and something collapses – and yet, it's quiet compared to the silvery drag of ethereal feathers against the cobble stones. None of them say or do anything, watching as the angel walks away.

"A-Ardino?" Lisabetta asks, still sniffling. "Ardino, what – what is going on? What has happened?"

"I – the lord angel drove the enemy away from Monteriggioni," the boy, Ardino, says shakily. "He took ser Mario down from the gates and entombed him under the Auditore Villa. Then we came here and found you. I – I don't know anything else."

"He has claimed Monteriggioni for his own," Marsilia says, with utmost certainty. "We are in God's keeping now."

None of them answer, and between them little Gilia looks down at the splinter in her hands.

It's turned into gold.

* * *

 

There is something on Desmond's back. It's – there's something there.

There are also people, hiding in a warehouse by the church. There are people hidden across from the bank. There are people, covering in a half-collapsed house – there are, all told, fourteen survivors, plus his Borgia spy, still living in Monteriggioni, and if Desmond wants to keep things that way, he has to hurry.

And yet there is _something on his back_. Something he can almost…

"What the hell?" he murmurs, looking down at the axe in his hands. "What is this?"

It's a Piece of Eden now. Or something a lot like it. Power courses through it, and symbols are drawn along the shaft – it's metal now, burnished gold, and there are mechanisms growing under the surface, complicating the thing further. It had been a two handed wood cutter axe when he started. He's not sure what it is now – it's more complicated than it was in the beginning. A sort of battle axe. He doesn't know the design. Which is weird.

He's pretty certain he'd made it. Changed it. Somehow. Without meaning to.

Letting the axe hang at his side, Desmond rubs a hand over his face. His head echoes – he's still in the aftermath of what he's starting to think was one _cosmic_ explosion. The Eye going off – it's still echoing somewhere. Echoing inside him, maybe. Rattling inside his skull.

Desmond tries to catch a hold of the rattling for a moment and then lets go. It's not important. There are still people here, in danger. That at least is something he can do something about. The rest could wait.


End file.
